Yippee! Let's poison ourselves with beverages that will make us violently ill! It was your battle cry last night, and today you're paying the price. But what is that hangover you're experiencing, exactly? »1/01/15 11:00am 1/01/15 11:00am

Amongst Apple's deluge of announcements last week, the company declared that the two iPhone 6 models and other iOS 8 iPhones would support Wi-Fi Calling, a nifty sounding tech that can use your home Wi-Fi to make calls. But the terminology is confusing, and it doesn't help that carriers are dancing around what it… »9/16/14 12:41pm 9/16/14 12:41pm

This year, Samsung will sell (at least) two phones and a watch that don't run Android. Instead, they'll run something called Tizen. That's a major departure for such an important player in the smartphone game. But what is Tizen? And will you actually want to use it? »4/16/14 4:10pm 4/16/14 4:10pm

For three decades, most of us have interacted with computers in exactly the same way: We point with a mouse (or a finger!), click, and watch the screen. In one way, it's the most outdated element of human computer interaction around. But in another, it's the thing that's shaped every operating system and device… »7/18/13 1:00pm 7/18/13 1:00pm

Big Data—information sets too large to be effectively computed on desktop systems—isn't just the buzzword du jour. It provides an unprecedented ability for business and industry to precisely model the effects of past managerial decisions on the bottom line. But an emerging analytical process called prescriptive… »6/19/13 4:09pm 6/19/13 4:09pm

One of the centerpieces of Facebook's new interface are "chat heads," Facebook's vision for the way that we should do messaging. Sounds fun! But what are they, exactly? And will they really change how we communicate? »4/04/13 1:54pm 4/04/13 1:54pm

Tired of smiling and nodding along while your electrical engineering buddies debate the finer points of electromagnetic theory? If you're taking a critical eye to the definitive guide to batteries, you've got to understand what electricity is to begin with. Here's a crash course on the fundamental force that's driving… »12/07/12 2:20pm 12/07/12 2:20pm

The human race produces 2.5 quintillion bytes of data every day—far too much to crunch using conventional desktop applications. Mining this mountain of data for nuggets usable information is one of the biggest challenges facing modern society. But a new generation of analytic tools are helping us control the… »12/03/12 4:40pm 12/03/12 4:40pm

Israel got itself into a little mini-war in Gaza, and Hamas is firing off an extra dose of rockets into the Holy Land. What's (maybe) stopping them? Something called the "Iron Dome"—and what exactly is an Iron Dome? »11/19/12 4:00pm 11/19/12 4:00pm

The lustrous patina that protects the backside of Apple's new iPad Mini isn't just some cheap shellac or sealant coat—it's actually "grown" on the metal itself in an electrochemical process known as anodization. Here's how. »10/23/12 5:24pm 10/23/12 5:24pm

To create the new iMac, Apple's thinnest desktop yet, the designers used friction-stir welding to join the aluminum body. Unlike arc welding, the more standard way to fuse metal plates, a friction stir just needs a good rubbing—and a few thousand pounds of pressure—to stick together. »10/23/12 2:45pm 10/23/12 2:45pm

While introducing the new ridiculously thin iMac, Apple also revealed its new Fusion Drive. What is it? It's a new storage system that supposedly combines the best of SSD and HDD. Basically, the speed of a SSD with the storage space of a big spinning HDD. »10/23/12 1:41pm 10/23/12 1:41pm

Pheed is the latest social network start up to roll off the factory line, promising to change our internet lives (or something). It combines aspects of Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and Tumblr (among others), and coats itself in a celebrity-endorsed sheen. So what is Pheed? Long story short, it's a shitshow. »10/19/12 2:16pm 10/19/12 2:16pm

This thing looks like a cross between a gun, some weird cooking utensil, and an elaborate medical instrument. It is of course none of those things: but can your work out what it was used for? »10/08/12 8:43am 10/08/12 8:43am

Intel Clover Trail. Sounds like a JJ Abrams movie about camping, right? But Clover Trail is actually the next generation Intel Atom chip that'll power both Windows 8 tablets and laptops. Which means you'll probably run into this chip pretty darn soon, so get familiar. »9/28/12 1:18am 9/28/12 1:18am

Everyone really likes AirPlay, Apple's Wi-Fi streaming standard that lets you send movies and music from, say, your iPhone to your speakers or Apple TV. Now there's a new standard out to do pretty much the same thing for everyone else. But how is it different from previous attempts? »9/19/12 1:00pm 9/19/12 1:00pm